The news of the past week is a follows – in no particular order:

• Amanda returned, safely, from her adventures in Nepal.
• The Hislops returned from a week away. Ben Palmer deputized splendidly at Carrical in their absence – as he always does.
• I attended the Housing Registrar Forum – a twice annual event. Complete, utter and abject waste of time. 2.5 hours of my life I am not getting back. Purely a chest-beating exercise for the Registrar to tell a disengaged audience how terrific they think they are.
• An unknown donor gave us $1000 this week – other gifts this week included a Christmas Tree and furniture.
• The October finance figures were released this week – they look terrific. An operating surplus of $27,000 for the month to give us a YTD operating surplus of just inxs of $90,000 to the end of October.
• In mundane yet still essential news we ordered 20 new mattresses.
• Andre met with half a dozen resos this week to complete the interview phase of his Essence Project. He is now in the process of writing up his findings which he will deliver to us in early December.
• I met with a couple of Uniting Church pastors from a church community in North Balwyn who are keen to see how they might become involved further with our work.
• A group of 9 Year 9 boys from Trinity Grammar hosted a BBQ lunch at Romana for resos.
• This week has seen one new reso move into each of Romana and Carrical.
• With one or two minor exceptions all 3 houses are really settled at the present time.